


At the Edge

by AutumnPen



Category: Bastion
Genre: Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-28 21:22:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/679018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AutumnPen/pseuds/AutumnPen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fences made to put barriers between our protagonists and edges - literal and metaphorical.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At the Edge

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as a writing prompt given to me by my fiance. The title is the prompt he gave.

“It’s not like he’s exactly plentiful with his words.”  
  
Zulf watches Zia as she stands at the counter, forearms bare, chopping vegetables for the meal she is preparing. He looks at the length of her eyelashes, at her dark eyes which turn to him after a moment to give him a meaningful look. A look that says _‘You know that.’_  
  
“I don’t think he’s avoiding you,” she continues after a moment, going back to her work. _That’s a fair assessment_ , he thinks, knowing that it’s really been the other way around. “I think he’s waiting for you to come to him.”  
  
Zulf stares silently down at his hands. Zia is good at this - reading people. Everything she says makes sense. He knows the kind of life the Kid has led, knows that the path he’s taken lends itself better to patience than eloquence. Kid isn’t the type to come seek him out for answers, even if he would be completely justified in doing so. He’s more likely to hang back, to let what happens happen. If he wants to talk to the Kid, it will be his job to seek him out. He just doesn’t know what to say.  
  
He tells Zia this.  
  
“Say that,” she suggests. “Something might come later. But for now, say that.”  
  
Again, he knows she is right. If he doesn’t know what to say, then the Kid will accept that. He will wait until he does have something to say.  
  
He finds the Kid, later, out near the edge of the Bastion. It brings back memories of the time they first met, of when it had been Zulf standing near the edge, thinking only of an End.  
  
Only it’s not like that this time.  
  
Kid is building a fence.  
  
It was Rucks’s idea. Zulf thinks the old man worries himself over the way Kid and Zia tend to romp about the place. And though he tells himself that it perhaps isn’t fair to think them not aware enough of their surroundings to keep themselves safe - they aren’t children, they deserve that credit - Zulf can’t help but be glad the fence will be there. Especially with the Bastion on the move now, safety is paramount.  
  
The fence is just in it’s beginning stages - a wooden, plank thing that doesn’t rise too high off the ground. Kid has a hammer in his hand and nails between his teeth. He looks up from where he kneels when Zulf nears him, acknowledges him with a nod.  
  
“It’s coming along nicely,” Zulf comments, feeling as though he’s stalling.  
  
But he’s satisfied when Kid smiles and speaks around the nails still clenched between his teeth. “Thanks.”  
  
A few moments pass in which Zulf just watches silently. He thinks Kid is glad to have something to do with his hands. Even with the hardest of their work over - collecting cores and shards - Kid isn’t the type to sit still for long. He needs the work. (Which may be the most contributing factor to why the  Bastion currently has various improvement projects going on. Another factor probably being that the lot of them are trying to make this place more like a home.)  
  
“May I help?” Zulf asks.  
  
Kid looks up again, regards him a moment, then nods. “Sure.”  
  
Zulf responds be shedding the upper layer of his clothing and rolling his sleeves up. They pass the time in a silence that is only interrupted by the sounds of hammering, and Zulf works up a sweat but it’s somehow comfortable. They get a lot done. It’s nice.  
  
“I don’t deserve to ask for forgiveness,” Zulf says after more than an hour has passed. He neither looks up from nor pauses in his work, but he can tell when the Kid pauses in his own. The only hammer sounding is his own, and Kid is still in his peripheral vision  
  
“You don’t need to.” Zulf wants to protest, to say something more, but the Kid continues, “It’s important that we keep going now.”  
  
Zulf’s shoulders sag, and remembered words echo in his mind:  
  
 _“We have to go now, please.”_  
  
A hand on his elbow, pulling him from the edge and back to safety, again. He wonders how many times Kid is going to save him.  
  
They work a while longer, and though Zulf can’t say he’s at peace with …everything, he thinks this is a step in a positive direction.  
  
“I think it needs paint.”  
  
Kid is thrown a moment, pausing once again, before he figures out that Zulf means the fence forming under their hands. Kid smiles, and this time Zulf returns it. “Yeah.”

**Author's Note:**

> In case it's not clear, the "remembered" words near the end are meant to be what Kid said to Zulf when he first met him. It may not be verbatim.


End file.
